It is a period of increasing pressure for England head coach Eddie Jones. His side are on a run of three losses in a row, defense coach Paul Gustard recently became the latest member of Jones back-room staff to leave and now Bath rugby have criticised his training methods.
Last week, Bath prop Beno Obano became the fifth player from that club to end up with a serious injury as a result of training with England. After a breakthrough season, Obano is set for a devastating 12-month stint on the sidelines which will threaten his World Cup involvement. Speaking to the Times, Bath owner Bruce Craig has slammed Jones' approach to training.
The level of injuries in these training camps is totally unacceptable. What is going on in the camp? There is obviously an issue because of the number of injuries. There has got to be significant questions asked about duty of care. At Bath, we’re not having cruciate ligament injuries in training. I am unsure of whether the players are not being taken to levels that are unacceptable.
In the aftermath of the Six Nations, RFU chief executive Steve Brown publicly backed Jones despite the disappointing performance: "The results in the Six Nations were not what we wanted, not what we expected and there is no attempt by us to dress this up. We wanted to do significantly better and we didn’t. We’re disappointed with the decline, no question about that. Nobody would want to go from winning the Six Nations to fifth. We will learn from this and make sure it doesn’t happen again."
Jones does have a chance to end the season on a slightly better note, with England playing the Barbarians tomorrow.
